Brazil Rio Santos Highway

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Rio de Janeiro

   Rio is the kind of city that looks like it was drawn by someone with a taste for exaggeration. Granite domes rise straight out of the sea and the streets, Sugarloaf at the entrance to Guanabara Bay, Corcovado with Christ the Redeemer on top, and between them are beaches, lagoons, favelas climbing the hillsides and a forest in the middle of town. The Tijuca Forest, replanted by hand in the nineteenth century after coffee farming had stripped the slopes, is one of the largest urban forests in the world. UNESCO recognised Rio's setting as a cultural landscape in 2012.

   Read the complete Rio de Janeiro write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Rio de Janeiro is where the day begins. Next is Angra dos Reis.

2. 2. Angra dos Reis

   Angra dos Reis is a bay of islands, and the number most often quoted is 365, one for every day of the year. Whether that is exact does not matter, because the scene is clear: a green, steep coast, calm blue water, and countless islands covered with Atlantic forest. The town, about a hundred and fifty kilometres west of Rio along the Costa Verde, is the main port, and boats leave from the harbour for Ilha Grande, the largest island, which has no cars and some of the best beaches in Brazil.

   Read the complete Angra dos Reis write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Angra dos Reis comes up about 156 km into the recorded legs. Next is Paraty.

3. 3. Paraty

   Paraty is a small colonial town on a bay of the Costa Verde, where the Serra do Mar mountains drop in green folds to a sea scattered with islands. It was a port of the gold rush in the eighteenth century, when gold from Minas Gerais came down a mule trail through the forest, the Caminho do Ouro, and was loaded here for the voyage to Rio and then Lisbon. The town is remarkably well preserved, with whitewashed houses with coloured door frames, a handful of churches, and streets paved with big uneven stones that are laid, so they say, to let the sea flush them clean at the highest tides.

   Read the complete Paraty write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 253 km into the recorded legs you reach Paraty. Next is Ubatuba.

4. 4. Ubatuba

   Ubatuba has more than eighty beaches, and surfers say the exact number depends on how much you walk. The name is from the Tupi language and is often said to mean place of canoe-trees, referring to the big trees the Tupinambá carved into boats. Beyond the beaches, the town sits between the sea and the Serra do Mar, a steep mountain wall covered in Atlantic forest, one of the richest and most threatened ecosystems in Brazil. The result is a coast where you can swim in the morning, walk to a waterfall in the afternoon and see toucans at dusk.

   Read the complete Ubatuba write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ubatuba, about halfway. Next is Ilhabela ferry.

5. 5. Ilhabela ferry

   The ferry from São Sebastião to Ilhabela is a short crossing of about fifteen minutes across a narrow channel, and it is the only way for vehicles to reach the island. Ilhabela, the largest sea island in Brazil, is a steep, forested mountain rising out of the Atlantic, with beaches, waterfalls and a handful of villages scattered around its shore. The mainland side is São Sebastião, a port town of over seventy-five thousand people with a historic centre of colonial churches and a working harbour.

   Read the complete Ilhabela ferry write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ilhabela ferry sits at 643 km, late in the day. Next is Santos.

6. 6. Santos

   Santos is Brazil's great port, the largest in Latin America, and for a rider who has spent the day on the coast road from Paraty, arriving feels like landing in a different century. The city sits on São Vicente island, across a channel from the mainland, and the harbour is crowded with cranes, container stacks and ships waiting for berths. Nearly everything Brazil sells to the world, coffee above all, passed through here at some point, and the old coffee exchange building, now a museum, still has its stained-glass ceiling and a tasting room.

   Read the complete Santos write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 569 km.